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store (in the book it was called “Fancy Pansty”) shyly inquiring as to whether it was true: was I really
the model for the famously tragic Sandrine from Big Red?
Elizabeth used to get so mad at those girls. “Do you see a fat redhead in this store?” she’d yell.
And here’s the worst part: I never thought I was fat until the book was published. I’d always rather
liked my curves. I wore only well-made vintage dresses, the kind constructed before the “era of the
super model,” after which clothing suddenly became unflattering sausage casings for all but the very
thin. And I never doubted Luke’s attraction to me, until I read his descriptions of Sandrine’s thighs
and the “white expanse of her upper arms,” which sent me spiraling into a near-decade of self-doubt
and insecurity.
People told me to take a trip, get out of town, go somewhere. But I couldn’t, maddeningly mirroring
Luke’s phobic Sandrine, who atrophied in one spot her whole life. I even stopped taking short drives
to the beach, afraid now to be seen in a bathing suit. On my sister Bree’s advice, I took up yoga; on
my mother’s, online dating. Both very bad ideas, it turned out. The only thing going for me was work,
so I clung to it, making my store the center of my life and my chief excuse for staying put.
Then Bree would accidentally let it be known that Charlotte was pregnant again, or that Luke’s
“cool indy” screenplay sold for “millions,” or that their Williamsburg loft was featured in Elle
magazine, where Charlotte also worked as a freelance stylist. Information like that would send me
reeling backwards in time, undoing progress made by a few tepid dates with some guy I’d halfheartedly
had sex with. That my sister remained friends with Charlotte was the least surprising
betrayal of all.
“Just ’cause y’all had a falling-out doesn’t mean I have to give her up, Dauphine. I was friends
with her too, you know. That’s unjust.”
“Falling-out? She was my best friend. He was my boyfriend. They killed my whole world.”
“Eight years ago! Most of your major organs have completely replenished themselves in that time!
When are you gonna move on? You need a man!”
What if you don’t need a man but you still want one? I wanted a man, just not all the mess—that
murky pond of feelings the worst of them sometimes leave you sitting in.
Men, however, were about the only subject to which I always deferred to my mother. She was from
Tennessee pageant stock and believed she knew a lot about men and their motives. She also believed
she knew a lot about me. She disapproved of the way I dressed. Her face said it all one day when she
and Dad came down from Baton Rouge to take me to my thirtieth birthday brunch, where I wore a
gorgeous 1940s tea dress with a pillbox hat and little black veil.
“I understand there is probably a very moving story behind that hat, but you’re puttin’ out a message
that says ‘Stay away from me, for I am peculiar, stuck in the past,’” she said. Peculiar was the worst
thing you could say about a Southern woman of a certain age.
I shook my head at this brief bout of nostalgia and watched Elizabeth lay down a yellow nest of
crimped paper strips. Mardi Gras had ended, and now we were gearing up for Easter. Yesterday I
scouted around for ideas for a theme and today I could see that Elizabeth had seized upon quite an
interesting one. When she finished tying up the back of a pale blue corset, I knocked on the window,
giving her my best what the hell? face.
“What are you doing here so early, Dauphine? You’re on afternoons!” she yelled through the glass.
“I promised to style you. For your date tonight.”
Her eyes flew open. “Right!”
“What’s your plan here?” I asked, my finger circling the pile of mannequin legs and arms.
“Corsets!” Elizabeth held up a fistful of lace and ribbons.